Cisco Plans 15% Job Cuts

Cisco Systems, the famous manufacturer of networking equipment, is going to prune jobs by 15% in its bid to tighten its belt and go on the road to recovery; Cisco had 73,408 employees on its rolls as at the end of the last quarter. Cisco is also going to sell a unit manufacturing set-top boxes in a bid to slash annual expenses by $1 billion.

Cisco is preparing to sell its manufacturing unit in Juarez, Mexico, and transfer 5,000 of its employees there to to Foxconn as part of the deal. The company would also slash 6,500 jobs; 2,100 employees among them will take early retirement.

Thus, about 11,500 employees - including about 15% of the executives at the level of Vice President and higher - are expected to lose their jobs in the coming weeks.

Cisco plans to notify the affected employess based in US and Canada in the first week of August. The layoffs in other countries will be carried out later in accordance with the respective local laws and regulations.

These austerity measures follow the comment of John Chambers, CEO, Cisco, in April that the company had "lost its way".